scope:

This Standard is intended to support energy audits of all types of farming operations (which includes ranching) typically found in North America. Energy audits shall exclude the farm residence, except where it is not practical to separate base line data.

This Standard does not address secondary (off-farm) energy savings in the development and evaluation of alternatives. For example, reduction in the amount of fertilizer used on a farm would represent a reduction of the associated energy needed to produce fertilizer for the farm at a fertilizer production facility (off-farm). This type of energy savings is not addressed as a part of this Standard.

Purpose

This Standard establishes procedures for performing on-farm audits to determine and document current energy usage, and to provide an estimation of energy savings from alternatives in the cultivation, protection, harvesting, processing and storage of agricultural commodities and in the feeding, housing and processing of farm animals and animal products. This Standard is provided to guide the reporting of data and the preparation of specific recommendations for energy reduction and conservation with estimates of energy savings.